New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
One of the biggest advantages of being a kitchen witch is being in your magickal workshop practically every day. There's a good chance that you'll be in the kitchen at some point during each day, even if you're just doing the dishes or re-heating your coffee. Each time you find yourself stirring a pot of stew or toasting sesame seeds or reading a recipe, you have an opportunity to practice magick. I have favorite spells I do all the time, and virtually all of them happen in the kitchen. The spells are easy, fast, and, most importantly, effective. 1. Sweep Away Your TroublesMy kitchen floor always needs sweeping. I can't tell you how many times a piece of carrot shoots off the cutting ...
In modern magical discourse, we spend a lot of time discussing how practitioners should approach the practice of magic, and these discussions are often framed in terms of two viewpoints, which form the ends of a spectrum. At one end, magic is seen as a purely psychological paradigm, and doing magic (if one "does magic" at all) is about inducing changes in the magician's consciousness, rather than creating any sort of tangible effects here on the material plane where most of us live, move, and have our being. From this end of the spectrum, the idea that magic actually has the ability to change the reality outside our own heads can be seen as possible, if implausible, or as laughable ...
In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the character Data questions whether or not he, as an android, can lay claim to a culture. Another character assures him that he is a culture: a culture of one. I have always liked this idea, because I've often felt like a culture of one myself. I think everyone does at some point, though perhaps some of us more often than others. The richest, most fully developed "culture of one" that I can think of is that which took root in the mind of J. R. R. Tolkien. Last spring, I was able to see the exhibit, "Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth" at the Morgan Library in New York City, and just in the nick of time, too, because the artifacts were packed ...
It is not hard to see where magic and food intersect. Most modern Pagan traditions hold that the planet we live on deserves reverence. "Earth-based spirituality" or "Nature religion" are common euphemisms for various forms of Paganism. Almost all magickal systems honor the elements as sacred participants and invited guests. Air, Fire, Water, and Earth are frequently invoked at Pagan rituals. Everything we eat comes from the earth. Yes! That includes organic vegetables, ethically-raised meats, and manufactured foods with additives and chemicals with a list of unpronounceable ingredients as long as your arm. We live here on the earth. The food we eat lives, grows, or is made here, ...
